New Year's Eve Morning Club Randori

10 am Sat morning our club in Durham, NC did an hour of randori after an hour class/warmup of newaza + moving uchikomi + gripfighting. This is the footage my s.o. managed to capture on her phone (she's sitting out with a broken toe):

Fun times, the people I'm randori-ing with are all much better than me and I see two big things I need to work on.

I posted it for entertainment purposes, to show what goes on in a typical Sat morning at our club. If someone wants to post comments/advice, anything, you don't really need permission as long as you're not a complete asshole (49% limit to your assholishness nonbinding resolution hereby signed).

The 19 year-old in the blue/white is Austin Cook, 3rd in the nation I think in 68 kg? home to the club from the holidays. The redhead is Alex Williams, an 18 year-old competitive sankyu. I'm in all white, I'm 33, I'm just a sankyu at judo and the black belts featured here are much better/years more experience than me. The people/matches are broken down in the YT text.

I agree, it is too many people sitting out, but there's really only room for 1 more pair. I tried to be up as a 3rd pair, but they wanted to give people space today. Maybe good since people's heads went into walls a little bit, etc.

The 19 year-old in the blue/white is Austin Cook, 3rd in the nation I think in 68 kg? home to the club from the holidays. The redhead is Alex Williams, an 18 year-old competitive sankyu. I'm in all white, I'm 33, I'm just a sankyu at judo and the black belts featured here are much better/years more experience than me. The people/matches are broken down in the YT text.

Ahh ok. I think Ben asked and I asked, because our comments depend entirely upon who you are, who you were fighting and other info.

For example Austin looked head and shoulders above everyone else, but as number 3 in the nation you would hope so. However, you need to know, because I've fought people who are now top 10 in my weight who I could give a hard time to, but guys who were number 1 and 2 weights below me 10 years ago can wreck my **** today.

Austin is pretty awesome, he trains at the OTC while at college. Most of these guys, but him much more so, outgrip me and it's tough to get into a position you can launch a good throw from. I started to use more sasaes against one guy, should've used it more vs. the others too.

You did pretty well considering how overmatched you were. Doing randori or shiai with lefties is frustrating, especially the more experienced one's like Austin. You have to be very deliberate about what you do, and in randori that can lead to very stilted practice which is ugly to look at even less productive.

You basically gave Austin your sleeve, which allowed him to throw you around and control you at will. If you will get Jimmy Pedro's "Grip Like a World Champion", it will show you the basics of how to deal with kenka yotsu.

I will often go to a double lapel grip against lefties just so I can get two hands on them and make them uncomfortable. But you have to be specific about how you do it or they will throw you anyway because they are used to dealing with righties all the time.

Thanks for posting, it was a nice practice, wish I could have been there with my students.

Ben

Falling for Judo since 1980

"You are wrong. Why? Because you move like a pregnant yak and talk like a spazzing 'I train UFC' noob." -DCS

Thank you for the tips. I planned to buy Jimmy Pedro's video for the last couple of years, but I just felt like there was so much crucial, more basic stuff I needed to work on (combinations and over the last year I picked up two new throws and made them 2 of my 3 main attacks, so I'm still adjusting and learning how to combine them). Maybe it's time though.

I've gotten double lapel as advice before, but I've never known how to do any throws from that grip. Lately (as in just this week) I started experimenting with a sasae from lapel + armpit... close enough maybe?

If you have any advice and/or can link me to any good videos demonstrating some double lapel throws I'd appreciate it. My main throws are osoto, ouchi, and sasae. Theoretically I have an uchimata (recently decided to take a break from it, I'm actually getting worse at it over time).